The Sleuth of St. James Street [80]
know it forced them out?" "Well, Miss Warfield," said the man, pointing to the rail and the denuded cross-ties, don't you see they're out?" "I see that they are out," replied Marion, "but I do not yet see that they have been forced out." She moved a step closer to the track boss and her voice hardened. "If these spikes were forced out by the impact of the engine, we ought to find torn spike holes inclining toward the end of the crossties. . . . Look!" The big practical workman suddenly realized what the girl meant. He stooped over and began to flash his torch along the end of the ties. We crowded against him. Every one of the spike holes, for the entire length of the rail, was straight and clean. The man seized one of the spikes and scrutinized it under his torch. Then he stood up. For a moment he did not speak. He merely looked at Marion. "It's the holy truth!" he said. "Somebody pulled these spikes with a clawbar. That weakened the rail, and she bowed out when the engine struck her." Then he turned around, and shouted down the track to his crew. "Hey, boys! Spread out along the right of way and see if you can't find a claw-bar. The devils that do these tricks always throw away their tools." We stood together in a little tragic group. The old peasant woman came over to where I stood, she walked with a dead, wooden step. "Contessa," she whispered, her old lips against my hand. "You will save him?" And suddenly with a wild human resentment, I longed to cut a way out of the trap of this Fatality; to force its ruthless decree into a sort of equity, if I could do it. "Yes," I said, "I will save him!" It was an impulse with no plan behind it. But the dabbing of the withered mouth on my fingers was like actual physical contact with a human heart. For a moment she looked at me as one among the damned might look at Michael. Then she went slowly away, down through the wooded copse of the meadow. And I turned about to meet Marion. I knew that she was now after the identity of the wrecker, and I faced her to foul her lines. "This is not the work of one with murder in his heart," she said "A criminal agent set on a ruthless destruction of property and life would have drawn these spikes on a trestle or an embankment, at a point where the train would be running at high speed." She paused for a moment, then she went on speaking to me as though she merely uttered her mental comment to herself. "These spikes are drawn at a point where the train slows down for a crossing and precisely where the engine would go off onto the hard road-bed of the highway into a level meadow. That means some one planned this wreck to result in the least destruction of life and property possible. Now, what class of persons could be after the effect of a wreck, exclusive of a loss of life?" I saw where her relentless deductions would presently lead. This was precisely the result that a discharged foreign workman would seek in his reprisal. This man would have hot blood, the southern Europe instinct for revenge, but with such a mother, no mere lust to kill. I tried to divert her from the fugitive. "Train robbers," I said. "I wonder what was in the express-car?" She very nearly laughed. "This is New York," she said, "not Arizona. And besides there was no express-car. This thing was done by somebody who wanted the effect of a wreck, and nothing else, and it was done by some one who knew about railroads. "Now, what class of persons who know about railroads could be moved by that motive?" She was driving straight now at the boy I stood to cover. At another step she would name the class. Discharged workmen would know about railroads; they would be interested to show how less efficient the road was without them; and a desperate one might plan such a wreck as a demonstration. If so, he would wish only the effect of the wreck, and not loss of life. Marion was going dead ahead on the right line, in another moment she would remember the man we passed, and the "black band" letters. I made a final desperate effort to divert her. "Come along!"